CHAPTER | THREE | ALIZA | POV

The next day went by pretty quick with two pop quizzes in English Literature and Math; that didn't mean that they were quite enjoyable though. Farah wasn't in school today which meant that I had spent the entire lunchtime with myself leaning against the oak tree eating my turkey sandwich, a packet of Oreos, skittles and a can of lemonade. I wasn't lying when I said I loved food.

What I don't love though was shopping! Any girl my age would love spending time outside with their friends and hanging out at the mall, but not me. I'd rather stay at home in the evenings and read or watch TV until it was time to go to the Masjid.

Looks like Mom had different ideas though. As soon as Baba's car was parked in the driveway, Ma came out and demanded me to sit in the car so that we could go shopping, obviously excited about it. I tried saying no and that I had a lot of homework for me to finish off but she wouldn't have any of it and decided to play 'You're my only daughter' card on me.         Well, it worked.

Shopping with Ma today was extra bad today because she had gotten me into every store possible and even made me try on everything that she found acceptable for me to wear; which wasn't a lot. She even made me go into Victoria's Secret. I cringed at that but kept my mouth shut. Wallah though, I thought I heard her say something about how it will please my future husband.

When she started to go through the lingerie section though that's when the fear started to creep up. I mean, what Mom could want in there. When I questioned her about it, she simply laughed and said it was for me.

*Flashback*

Me and Ma had just entered Victoria's Secret even though she knew I hated this store because it somehow made me uncomfortable standing in here with tiny bits of lace everywhere, yet she still made me come in here. That wasn't what made me confused though. My confusion was directed to Ma heading over to the lingerie isle.

"Ma what are we doing in the lingerie section? I'm sure you don't need anything from here!" I said to her in a hush whisper so that the sales lady who was giving us dirty stares from across the room wouldn't hear me.

"Ah Habibi that's funny. But no, this is for you!" It took me a whole five minutes of staring at Mom picking things up from the rack for me to understand that this was all for me. But why?!

*End of Flashback*

That daunting question was still in the back of my head even after several hours had passed and now that we were back home I still didn't dare to open the bags of shopping that we had bought today, I'm sure my eyes would bulge out of their sockets if I do.

When we had arrived back home after Baba picking us up so that we could eat dinner (Ma wouldn't let us eat in the food court) I noticed that half of my family was acting weirdly. The twins and Mustafa were their usual self, goofing around with each other, but Ma, Baba and Adam had gone completely abnormal.

Baba and Ma were more cheerful than usual and this morning was not the cause of it. When Baba had come to pick us up after school he had gone to the liberty of buying me pizza. Not for the twins, or the family, but me! I still shared it with the twins when Baba wasn't looking though, after all sharing is caring.

Adam was the worst out of them. As soon as we stepped inside the house after shopping, Adam was sitting on the couch and watching MTV but when he saw me he shut the TV off and marched up to his room without uttering a single word to any of us. That hurt a little knowing that my older brother was mad at me for something which I have no idea about.

What made things even more awkward was the journey to and back from the Masjid where Baba and Ma were constantly chatting about how important marriage was and how they were proud. I didn't get it, was someone else in the family getting married?

Now we were back home and we had all just finished praying Isha a mere five minutes ago but I wasn't in my bed like every other night after praying the last Salat, instead I was sitting on the couch with Ma, Baba and Adam. Adam was sitting next to me clenching and unclenching his fists while Ma and Baba beamed at me from the opposite couch. What was seriously going on here?

"Ma and Baba, you wanted to talk?" I asked both my parents as I got impatient for having to already wait five minutes for them to start speaking. Adam wasn't helping either, couldn't he just stay still for a few minutes? Better yet the whole night?

"Yes Aliza. Habibi we have such exciting news for our little girl!" Ma exclaimed and I don't think I'd ever see her this excited before. Whatever she was about to tell me must be either life changing or she was exaggerating a bit to freak me out.

"Yes?" I urged them both to carry to telling me whatever it was that they had to tell me.

"Aliza dear...you have a marriage proposal." Baba stated like it was the most natural thing in the world, while I sat there with my mouth open looking like Asif's fish that was in his room upstairs.

At the same time Adam angrily stood up and since he was sitting right next to me, he nearly toppled me over on to the entire couch which made Mom and Dad look at him disapprovingly. All signs of their happiness seemed to have vanished.

"Adam is this a way to behave?!" Ma scolded at Adam but he didn't seemed fazed by it.

"Ma I'm sorry but what do you expect me to do when my best friend goes and ask for my little sisters' hand in marriage?! And that they get married by the end of this month!" Adam had turned a shade of red now and I instantly stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Adam please calm down. If anything Ma and Baba didn't even know this was going to happen. Taking your anger out on them is not the right thing to do, just stay calm!" I begged Adam to calm down a little so that he wouldn't have to wake everyone who was sleeping upstairs. Or the fact that he was shouting at our parents' was something that I didn't like.

"Your sister is right Adam. You knew this day was going to come so there's no point in arguing about it. We thought that with you being our eldest son you would understand, please do not make us regret our decision in letting you in on this," Ma had now turned back to the calm and collective parent that she was and in an instant Adam had settled back down on the couch.

"Now Aliza I know this might be a little hard on you dear but we are expecting a lot of questions from you," Baba now turned to me and had a small smile playing on his lips.

I thought about it for a few seconds. I had a marriage proposal from my older brothers' best friend. He wished to get married by the end of the month. With that, I finally replied. "Ma, Baba I have no questions for the both of you. The two of you seem content with him and if you are then so am I. But I'd really like to see, err..." I left hanging because I didn't know his name.

"Isa, Habibi. Don't worry, him and his parents will be coming over this Saturday to discuss this wedding but before they would like to ask your approval of the marriage." Ma said to me before she wished both me and Adam goodnight and went upstairs with Baba.

"Aliza I won't say anything about this because in some way I'd rather it was Isa asking for your hand in marriage rather than some random stranger. I'm not entirely happy with my little and only sister getting married though." Adam said and turned to me having calmed down a little more than he was a few minutes ago.

I hugged my older brother tightly and a few stray tears escaped my eyes as I had no intention of stopping them. It was only a few times that me and Adam had ever spent time like this and I always cherished it because I knew they didn't last very long before the teasing began or he would be away at College again.

I watched as I stood up how Adam leaned back on the couch and closed his green emerald eyes which we both shared. This must have been really nagging at his mind because I've never seen him so frustrated before.

As I walked up the stairs to my room I couldn't help but remember Adam's friend yesterday from McDonalds whose name was Isa too right? I gasped as I memorized his face and those hazel eyes which were definitely beautiful. I may not have heard him speak but at least one of the factors in choosing someone to be your spouse was there. Beauty.

To be honest I couldn't care less if he had warts on his face; what I cared about was his intentions and I'm not talking about the marriage ones. I mean whether he is a good person Islamic wise and whether or not he values the love of our religion like I always expected my spouse to.

Thinking about this in bed at eleven at night seemed highly unfamiliar to me because marriage was something I had always expected to do when I was in my early twenties, but that didn't mean that I wasn't ready for this. It was after all advised to marry at a young age.

I decided to worry about this when Saturday came over because I had school in the morning and I have to wake early for Fajr too. Farah would be over the moon when I tell her about this in the morning. She was always the one out of both of us to be dreaming about getting married at a young age and to someone who resembled Zayn Malik. Sure Isa didn't, but that doesn't mean that was a bad thing. Not at all.

Falling on my side I enveloped my dreams warmly and within a few seconds my mind became blank and sleep took over.

***

Telling Farah about this whole marriage concept was a lot harder than I thought it ever would be. After every five words that I managed to utter out she would interrupt me and give out a little squeal, making people who were passing by give us curious glances.

"Farah, you're making the Adhan in Saudi sound like a whisper compared to your screaming!" I informed her with a straight face while hoping I don't start laughing at her giving me death glares.

"Hey! It's not every day that you hear your best friend is getting married!" She exclaimed and once again began fan girling over the idea of me getting married. I had tried explaining the little detail of how I remembered Isa to be like to Farah and already she was excited.

"Farah, there is a possibility of me saying no to this proposal you know," I still had that straight face on but either she didn't hear me or was ignoring the fact that I had said the unthinkable. Either way she carried on shrieking.

This morning I had thought about the possibilities of me rejecting this marriage proposal, then again I had never properly met the guy and he could be a really faithful person with a strong Imaan, so who am I to start having negative thoughts before I had even spoken to him?

I hoped that this Saturday I would be able to talk to him properly since the last time we had met he didn't seem very talkative; or he was just really angry with me for bumping into him. Whatever it was I hope that he would utter a word to me this Saturday.

"Ali girl stop zoning out! Trey here called your name like two minutes ago!" Farah said as she gave a 'light' push from my side. I simply glared at my so called best friend and looked up from the grass where we sitting to a standing Trey.

Trey was the quarterback of the school’s football team and dated the blonde cheerleader who was a year younger than us. I had spoken to Trey a few times in class when he didn't understand the work or when we were partnered up for something but I still found it quite confusing as to why he was speaking to me now.

"Listen Aliza I was walking past and I heard that you're getting married?" His sentence turned into a question and I wondered why he would ever ask about this.

Confused, I replied back to him. "Well I might be, yeah. Why do you ask?" 

"It's just that, aren't you a little too young to be getting married?" He asked and I could see the confusion in his face clearly so I decided to lighten the mood a bit.

"Think about it this way. My Mom was eighteen when she had my older brother and she was married," My witty answer seemed to have worked because he started to smile and with a wave he retreated back to his friends that consisted of the whole football team. So Asif and Akbar was there too.

Seeing me, they naturally made their way over to me, hugged me and muttered a small hello to Farah who seemed lost in her little notebook which she always wrote in. She had showed me a few times of what she wrote in there and Mashallah her writing was beautiful. She could honestly become an author if she wanted to.

"Ali what happened last night? We heard Adam lose his chill but then everything became quiet and we couldn't hear what was being said," Asif looked as if he was about to explode with the amount of curiosity he had from last night's conversation.

"Asif don't worry about it, you'll know about it when Ma and Baba tell you or just generally on Saturday," I assured them both with a shrug off my shoulders.

They both stared at me for what seemed like the longest five seconds ever until I brought my fingers to their faces and began snapping. That was a total fail though considering I couldn't snap my fingers. The twins must have noticed it too because they began laughing at my humiliation.

Eventually the laughter died down and they both had to go back to their waiting team mates. Once again I sat down next to Farah who had put her little notebook away. She had now taken the actual copy of the Notebook by Nicholas Sparks and was munching away happily on her packet of grapes that her Mom gives her every morning.

"Far you know I love you but why do you keep reading these soppy books?" I asked my best friend who had now began sipping on a bottle of water.

"Ali you know I love you too, but these books are just so romantic and it makes me wish I had a loving boyfr-wait! Astaghfirullah what am I saying?!" In an instant she had the book closed and put safely away in her bag. 

Oh how this girl makes me laugh. One minute she's all lovey dovey with her books and the next she's hating on them like it was the most despicable thing she had ever cast her eyes on.

I turned to Farah and looked up at her. "Far these books may be romantic, but what I find much better was the love of Prophet Muhammad PBUH for Aisha. For me, that's better than any made up soppy love book," I confessed to her whilst sighing and leaning back on the tree. From the corner of my eyes I could see Farah nod her head in agreement with me.

"Ali, will you forget me after you get married?" That was a strange question and when I looked back up to Farah I could see that there were tears in her eyes and one had escaped down her face.

Farah never looked good when she cried. Her grey eyes turns into a misty shade and her tanned face from her Egyptian heritage seems to just...fall. 

I got her in a hug and for a minute we just sat there. "Far I could never forget you even if I wanted to. You were there with me in Kindergarden, Middle school, High school and we'll be together even after we have grandkids In Sha Allah!" 

She seemed to have cheered up from my little speech but before she could say anything else the bell had rung to signal the end of lunch. I sighed and got up. Farah did the same and with one last hug we went to our classes; me with a gnawing feeling. 

I wouldn't forget her; it's just not possible! 

***

Asalaamalikum guys, I was going to make this chapter a lot longer but Wattpad is being stupid so I just had to end there. What did you think of it though? Five votes to update/ write.

Dedicated to @Trackisista1998 for just being awesome!

Have a Good Day and May God Bless You All.